Rethinking How We Think About Climate Change: Beyond Politics and Paralysis Lies a Way Forward—to Action - Elizabeth Kolbert

“The single most common myth about climate change among Americans is that there’s a lot of disagreement among the experts,” says Ed Maibach, director of the Center for Climate Change Communication at George Mason University.  “And the reason why they think there is a lot of disagreement among the experts is because there was an intentional strategy to sow the seeds of doubt.”  Polling shows that the public is largely ignorant of the scientific consensus on climate change.  In a survey conducted in March by Maibach’s group and the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication, respondents were asked, “What percentage of climate scientists think that human-caused climate change is happening?”  Only one in 10 gave the correct answer, which is “more than 90 percent.”

To counter this, Maibach argues, it’s important that scientists themselves speak out and let the public know that, at least in terms of the geophysics, there is no controversy about climate change.  This past spring he worked with the American Association for the Advancement of Science to address the issue head-on by launching a public information campaign titled What We Know.

“Based on the evidence, about 97 percent of climate scientists agree that human-caused climate change is happening,” the campaign’s website states.

“We think there’s been a huge communication failure among members of the climate science community, because the myth was essentially a lie about what they believe,” Maibach says.  “It turns out that if you actually supply a number that quantifies the consensus, it has a really strong impact on changing people’s perceptions.”

Rethinking How We Think About Climate Change:  Beyond Politics and Paralysis Lies a Way Forward—to Action - Elizabeth Kolbert